The Coach’s Insight | What happens on a team following a trade?
By Marc-André Dumont
The skill to adapt is huge for any player, coach, staff member and manager in junior hockey. The situations they face are various, sometimes unpredictable, and, more often than not, challenging. The ability to adapt is crucial to perform in a consistent way for a long period of time.
The days and weeks following a trade period are a perfect example of it. When a team acquires new players, time will be required to develop a new chemistry, to reach a new normality. It will take time for players to reach the level of “it feels like we’ve played together forever”.
In general, there are two categories of teams at the Christmas trade period: the buyers and the sellers. When a team tries to improve or even go all-in, its adaptation period will differ in certain points to a team that opts to reset or rebuild.
Here are a few of the challenges surrounding trade periods that teams, coaches and managers must take into account:
The Buyers
- Place new player in an adequate billet family
- Provide the tools for a smooth academic transition
- Manage ice time, especially with those who will lose minutes
- Manage roles: for example, some players will move from the 2nd to the 3rd line, or will lose powerplay time or penalty kill shifts
- Convert these disappointments into an opportunity for team success
- Develop chemistry among new lines and pairings, including powerplay units
- Build cohesion among the group on ice and off ice
- Revisit the team system to get all players on the same page
- Manage the pressure that comes from the environment
- In successful stretches, make sure the team remains humble and hungry
- Never let criticism or praise affect the team, it’s an ambush
- Prepare to peak at the right time
The Sellers
- Place new player in an adequate billet family
- Provide the tools for a smooth academic transition
- Welcome the new players: often younger or relatively experienced players looking to finally “get their chance”
- Redefine and update team objectives
- Possibly name new captains/alternate captains and leadership group
- Manage the stress of facing more seasoned and experienced opponents
- Stay in the moment, place culture and team values as top priorities (as it should always be)
- Adjust certain aspects of team system based on personnel available
- Try new lines and pairings, special unit combos and allow players to try different and new roles
- Avoid becoming careless when facing adversity or failure
In the weeks following important changes to the lineup, coaches will double up in efforts during on ice practice, video sessions, individual meets and leadership group meetings to help the team find its cohesion as soon as possible.
A rule of thumb that’s generally applied is: the time required to find cohesion = one week for every new player. For example, if a team acquired four new players, you can expect that nearly one month will be needed to find that team cohesion.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that the team will lose all of its games during that stretch! A team can win games but assess that it didn’t follow the plan completely or wasn’t as efficient in a specific aspect of the game. To sustain long term success, one that will last late into spring, this phase is crucial. Gambling on a shortcut often leads to a dead end.
As mentioned earlier, the aspects of the living arrangements and the academic environment are two major elements in the life of a junior hockey player. Team staff who oversee these two aspects put in a lot of time and effort between the end of December and beginning of January to facilitate a player’s transition from his previous team to his new one.
Let’s not forget the equipment managers and medical staff, who must also adjust quickly. Players are creatures of habit. They get used to their equipment (sticks are very important), a type of skate sharpening, etc. Upon arriving with a new team, the equipment manager does everything he can to facilitate the player’s transition, like try to sharpen his skates the best way possible. Needless to say, the equipment manager is solicited from all angles to provide new pieces of equipment, keep inventory of the equipment players that were traded left with, set up a stall for the new players, consult the coaches to establish who sits where, etc. That process can be really hard if the acquiring team is on a road trip at the time of the trade. Planning becomes a big asset.
As for the medical aspect of things, athletic therapists and team doctors will look into providing the services which players were receiving with their former team. It often comes down to details such as a certain way of applying a medical tape job, giving post-practice treatment, handing out medication due to a health issue, and much more. Players sometimes have an old injury that needs regular attention, to make sure it does not resurface.
Players have an incredible ability to adapt and, when they face a new start, they usually take the opportunity to grow, develop and learn everything about their new environment. Teams have developed an expertise in facilitating the transition. Junior hockey is undoubtedly a school of life. Players are almost always in shock when they hear they are being traded. But in most cases, they show character and resilience through it and these skills accompany them for the rest of their hockey careers and in their everyday lives.